The Weekend Report

Swept Away … Too

If it ain’t broke … don’t … Taken 2 once again outpaced expectations with an estimated $50.2 million to lead weekend film sales. The session’s only other wide debut was the animated Frankenweenie that slotted fifth overall with a disappointing $11.7 million bow.

Following last weekend’s limited opening, Pitch Perfect expanded nationality to good results of $14.7 million that ranked it third in the lineup.

In the niches Bollywood entry English Vinglish was off to a solid start of $590,000 at 88 locations and Winnie, the controversial drama on Winnie Mandela, failed to roil the waters with a 28 screen launch in Canada that netted $34,300. The black comic yarn of suburbia, The Oranges, had limited juice of $184,000 from exposure at 110 sites.

Among the exclusive newcomers, The Paperboy made the loudest noise with box office of $103,000 at 11 theaters. Also encouraging was the single screen bow of the latest revisionist Wuthering Heights with an $8,500 gross and the non-fiction The House I Live In, a searing look at drug war politics, generated $15,600 from three playdates.

Overall weekend revenues climbed up to roughly $145 million and a 20% boost from seven days earlier. It was an impressive 55% improvement from 2011 when incoming entries Real Steel and The Ides of March bowed respectively with $27.3 million and $10.5 million.

The original Taken was unquestionably one of the big box office surprises of 2008 when it bowed to close to $25 million and played and played. The Luc Besson production of terrorist’s kidnapping the wrong victim and feeling the considerable wrath of an ex-CIA operative hasn’t mussed much with the story arc in the sequel. The opening weekend crowd skewed slightly male with a 52% tally and was 56% aged 25-years and older.

The expansion weekend of Pitch Perfect didn’t experience much of a change in its viewership. Women accounted for 81% of the audience that was 55% aged 25-years and junior.

Frankenweenie experienced the negative bias of animation as a family viewing experience and Tim Burton’s well known twisted sensibility. The result was not dissimilar from the initial commercial response to A Nightmare Before Christmas and one can well imagine the film evolving into a profitable perennial.

The box office is proving to be as frantic and erratic as the race for the White House … but at least for the moment it’s on the ascendant. With Thanksgiving weeks away and award season ramping up there’s reason to be optimistic …